In my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,084 I have disclosed a system of this general nature in which modular loads, such as stardard-size containers, are transferred by computer-controlled conveyors between flatcars of a train halting at a railroad station and loading/unloading bays accommodating trucks adapted to carry such containers. The computer is fed information regarding the destination of oncoming containers to be transshiped, their locations on an arriving freight train, and vacancies aboard an outgoing train onto which containers with corresponding destinations can be loaded. The patented system eliminates the usual yard switching and simplifies the road/rail interchange but requires rather substantial modifications of existing railroad stations.
German Pat. No. 1,196,573 describes a system for the transfer of containers, pallets or the like between cars of a freight train and a stationary ramp through the intermediary of a shorter auxiliary train whose cars are flexibly interconnected for alignment with respective freight cars to be loaded or unloaded, the cars of the auxiliary train being provided with wheeled carriages shiftable across the gaps between the auxiliary train and the freight train or the ramp whereupon a roller-supported platform can convey the load over the carriage; the carriages are elevated to pick up the loads to be transferred and are lowered for redepositing them on the areas assigned to them. An elevatable transfer unit of Japanese construction has been described in a 1971 issue of the German-language railroad magazine titled "Schienen der Welt".